The Singularity
Yesterday’s post was prompted by something I read at a blog I had just discovered, Overcoming Bias. I read more and more of the blog and really gravitated towards the posts by Eliezer Yudkowsky, who wrote the post I referenced yesterday. So I started reading his stuff and learned all about the Singularity and found my way to a bunch of really interesting sites. It’s funny how one little discovery like that can send you all over cyberspace.
So now I am going to share with you what I’ve learned:
Eventually we will develop Artificial Intelligence or AI that is smarter than us. If an AI is smart enough to build another AI that is even smarter, it will be like an intelligence explosion going on and on with each generation of AI creating smarter and smarter AI’s. This intelligence explosion and the AI’s that would cause it are referred to as the Singularity. If these AI’s become hostile or even indifferent to human life, we will be in serious trouble.
Why will we be in trouble?
Think about the way we treat animals. We treat them like machinary to do work for us, we eat them, we use them as entertainment, etc. The primary reason this happens is that we are so much smarter than animals that we consider them a lower form of life. What would prevent super-intelligent AI’s from treating us similarly?
People who are into Singularity, like my new crush Eliezer Yudkowsky, think that it’s possible to create the first AI with a basic morality framework that would prevent it from harming us. He explains it much better than I would be able to in this video (also embedded below). Essentially, if you go along with this theory of the Singularity, this could be the greatest issue to face mankind. The AI’s would be smart enough to solve any problem we came across, provided we survived their existence.
This is pretty much the extent of my grasp on Singularity. I think it’s completely fascinating. In my diggings on the internet, I found out that there will be a Singularity Summit here in San Francisco in just a couple weeks! I hope to go and tell you all about it.
You are very luck to be able to go. You just might be a part of history.
Hi Emily, it’s great that you’ve gotten into Eliezer Yudkowsky’s writings. Reading this reminds me of how I had the same experience in 2001. Look for me at the Singularity Summit, if there aren’t too many people there!
You might be interested in checking out my blog as I look at Singularity-related issues pretty frequently. I also live in SF, in the Sunset.
I’m excited to read your blog. It looks really interesting. Hopefully, we’ll run into each other at the Summit!
Got here from The Speculist. Hope you don’t mind the spam - since others were recommending their Singularity-related texts, I thought I could mention my essay about some reasons for to believe AI is near, which might be handy in case you need to convince AI-sceptics about this being a real issue. (I also have an introductory Singularity article up, but you’ve obviously passed the point of needing to be told why AI matters. :))
I’d visit the Singularity Summit if it was a bit closer. Like, say, on the same continent. :)
Isn’t it ironic that we would be the ones to start this intelligence explosion? it’s like the genie from Aladdin making jafar a more powerful genie than himself — it somehow seems backwards. Perhaps this singularity is the new type of evolution; perhaps it’s up to the species to advance itself, and while more “primitive” animals did this through survival, humans are beyond that basic need. Any future evolution may not be as drastic as past evolution — for example humans from monkeys — unless humans themselves are the catalysts.
I am deeply envious that you’re right there and can go to the summit. I’d love to go myself but, well, I’m in Japan, and transhumanism is a meme that hasn’t really started to spread here yet.
We promise to have a full report for everyone that can’t make it.